The chair of the UK’s nursing regulator has announced he will step down, months after a damning review prompted by a newspaper exposé uncovered a series of allegations and cover-ups.
Sir David Warren, chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, will leave his role after a report warned that the organisation’s “toxic” culture was putting the public and nurses in danger.
The independent review by KC Nazire Afzal accused the regulator’s leadership of ignoring warnings over its extensive problems – and a dysfunctional culture at “every level” – and ignoring serious sexual, physical and racist abuse.
The Afzal review was commissioned after reports by The Independent revealed a whistle-blower’s allegations that the NMC’s “toxic” culture of rogue nurses and internal racism remained unchecked.
The NMC regulates more than 800 000 nurses, midwives and nursing associates in the UK and is one of the largest professional regulators in Europe.
The Afzal review, published in July, found six nurses had taken their own lives in just one year while under investigation by the NMC.
It also found failures in how the regulator handled serious allegations, including a case of one nurse who was not struck off for seven years despite being accused of raping a colleague and sexually assaulting a patient.
Some other senior figures have left the NMC in the past few months, including its chief executive, Andrea Sutcliffe, who said she was stepping down to recover from surgery.
The news comes ahead of a second independent review carried out by another top barrister, Ijeoma Omambala KC, which will look into the NMC’s treatment of the whistle-blower and specific regulation cases flagged by them.
This review is due to be published before the end of the year.
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